December 8, 2007

THE BULLSHIT BEHIND BIOFUEL: Smithsonian Magazine -- Who's Fueling Whom? "There are more than 200 million cars and light trucks on American roads, meaning they would require two billion acres' worth of corn a year (if they actually used only 50 gallons a month). The country has only about 800 million acres of potential farmland."

THE OMNIPOTENT GEORGE BUSH, PLANET KILLER!Bubbleheads in Bali [via Tim Blair] "Protesters from as far as Europe, South Korea and Bangladesh marched through Bali's main town of Denpasar carrying banners that read "Stop Climate Chaos," "Rich countries must pay" and "Bush: Killer of the planet."

LEAVE NO CHILD'S BEHIND UNFATTENED: "Last week, students in Seminole County, Florida received their report cards in envelopes adorned with Ronald McDonald promising a free Happy Meal to students with good grades, behavior, or attendance."

WOLF HOWLING ASKS: "Is it just me who thinks that turning heavily to ethanol is both useless and, for much of the world, a disaster in terms of rising food prices?" No, it's not just you.

GORE BORES AT $7,000 per minute speech. "Many of the audience at last month's Fortune Forum summit were restless as Mr Gore, who has won both a Nobel Peace Prize and an Oscar for his campaigning work this year, delivered the half-hour speech that netted him 100,000 Pounds."

IT HASN'T GOT THE HANSOMS IN THE PARK: NYC to Consider Horse-Drawn Carriage Ban "The horse-drawn carriages that clip clop around Central Park could be banned under City Council legislation to be introduced at the urging of animal advocates who say the horses are treated inhumanely."

"historical documents hint that the Hittites -- whose empire stretched from modern-day Turkey to northern Syria -- sent diseased rams to their enemies to weaken them with tularemia, a devastating bacterial infection that remains a potential bioterror threat even today."

Not so fast says Mark Wheelis, at the University of California, Davis.

"The intent would have to be not to just freak the enemy out, but to actually transmit disease," he explains. Until such intent to spread disease is proven beyond a doubt, Wheelis says any theory is speculative."

I guess Prof. Davis thinks we should give the inspectors more time.

KABOOM! in rhyme: "We are in the midst of a sonnet explosion arguably on a par with the great 19th century revival."

CHAPOMATIC seems to have done the heavy lifting and gives you the critical links on the NIE in NIE and Context

THE HORIZON, an art blog @ Commentary is not only new, it actually has its head on straight about the doleful state of what we call "the arts."

JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT THE WEB WAS safe from Microsoft, it seems that there will be a new release of Internet Explorer (Remember that?) It will be called.... wait for it.... Internet Explorer 8 "IE ate" as in: "IE ate my email composition when it crashed." "IE ate my preferences." "IE ate the Internet."

A PAIN IN THE WEB'S BUTT: That's what those irritating Snap pop-ups have become. First you have to live the era of porn pop-ups and install all sorts of items to defeat them. Great. But now, thanks to the revolvting Snap, we've got millions of sites installing popups inside their content. Result? Bunches of miniweb pages popping up when you mouseover a link. Enough already. If we're interested, we'll click. This is a feature that should be uninstalled across the web with extreme prejudice.

GREETINGS EARTHLINGS! GeoGreeting's Send a message from above courtesy of Google Earth. (Of course, at the rate we're going we may have to rename Earth Google.

IN THE DETAILS: "You could reach down and lift the floor mat and see the pavement roll by through the rusty pinholes in the floor, where the road salt had done its work, and worked overtime, too." -- Sippican Cottage

"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper
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GQ Magazine has a one page piece in its December, 2008 issue on Al, and what a super-cool guy he is. I saw it the other day at Midas while waiting for my Ford Explorer to be transformed into a Lexus. It's a good read, if you haven't seen it. (You could do wonders with it.)The word sychophant comes to mind, as they write about their last year's Man of the Year in brighter than light terms and wish they could make him Man of the Decade etc.

But never fear, they've come up with a good substitute this year. His former studly Commander-in-Chief.

I should wait at Midas more often when I need this kind of info-entertainment.

A report out today from accountancy giant Deloitte & Touche says humans seem to have a peculiar talent for making previously abundant resources scarce: 'this is especially the case with water,' it observes.--Al Guardian

Damn those humans!

Great synopsis of the absurd, Gerard.

Posted by: Nichevo at December 9, 2007 3:55 PM

Thanks for the mention!

If you don't like Snap Shots, you can easily turn them off:

1. Move your cursor over the cogwheel icon in the upper right corner of the shot, and select "Disable".
2. Select "THIS site" if you want them turned off for the site you are on, or "ALL sites" if you want them gone for all sites.
3. Reload the page and you are done.